Online Networks

Tonight, I have made a classic mistake. I decided to come back to StumbleUpon to see what new features and improvement have been done there since the first time I joined and after they joined the eBay family.

I browsed around and tested some of the features as I wanted to check who in my networks were on the platform and like usually decided to check it with the feature provided to connect on one of my emails accounts like in many other online communities… I read pretty quickly, seen only few people were already members and decided to validate to connect with them… Sadly… I didn’t check that actually an email was going to be sent to all my contacts non-members…I know it’s stupid to not have read properly… but I’m sure that I’m not alone!!

This feature which is today used by many networks is quite useful when it’s well implemented and especially when there are a two steps process… One connecting with people who are already members, and a second step which is if you choose you can invite all your contacts or specific ones…

In the case of StumbleUpon, it’s only a one step process and with the option by default to select All your contacts who are already members and to send an email to All your contacts in your address book who are not members…

I know that they have a need to attract more users, a need to reach the target, but I don’t think that it’s good process if you want to keep your users happy and specifically when they are there for the first time. I end up to be frustrated by this process and not sure that actually I will use again this functionality or be really careful as I don’t want all my contacts to receive this type of email….

So if many of you, have received an email from me regarding an invite to StumbleUpon and you find this inappropriate. I’m really sorry and didn’t want to share your personal email on purpose… Now, it’s an interesting concept of sharing new websites, and new content on the web… so I will try it and would be really careful if you intend to use this functionality…

I have been playing yesterday a bit more than usually with Twitter. If you don’t know yet Twitter it’s a micro-blogging platform which allow to exchange short message with your friends on the web, but also on your mobile.

I have been playing with the different options, redesign the background, change the colors of the text, links, sidebar etc… and try to reset the mobile interface… I don’t know why but it’s just impossible for me to send any text messages, and even to validate my phone number on it… Anyone else has the same problem?

At least, the good thing is that I won’t have to deal with a 677 pages phone bill like Alex

I went to see yesterday evening The Lord of Rings at the Royal Drury Lane Theater.
We sit in the Upper Circle at the third row which provide a really excellent view on the show.
For those who are absolutely fanatic about the book and the film, you will find some short cut in the story… but globally it’s really easy to follow up. Now for those, like me who are a bit impatient and find the film too long… it’s absolutely perfect
Regarding the production is absolutely perfect and the decoration just amazing, warm congratulation for the designers…

I have seen during the past few months several shows and to be honest this one is far ahead of all the expectations I had… as I have been quite disappointed by the past productions like Evita and Chicago…

So to be short, If you have one evening non-booked in London and you are looking for something to do… I can only advise to go and see this show.

Was just reading a post from 23 Musings related to social technographics following the paper published by Forrester .
I’m totally agreed with the comment done on 23 Musings, and it’s true that is really refreshing to see that people like the great Charlene Li highlight this way of thinking social technologies.
Tonight, I was discussing with some guys about online social networks, and one of the point was definitively that the functionality need to fit with the audiences.
The need to study your audience is absolutely crucial. You will need to use different functionality, different way to create relationships or to communicate depending on your audiences. Adding functionality and functionality and functionality as just one effect: getting your users out.
This paper is absolutely refreshing… and hope to see some more pretty soon related…

Sorry for those who don’t speak French, but I have found reading the blog of Loic this absolutely awesome video, and I can ‘t help it, I need to share it with you ;): Le film INTERDIT de Ségolène Royal

Web 2.0, yep… you don’t have any idea of what is it? Me never, even I’m working in this space before O’reilly main man got this genius idea.

I have an absolute crazy discussion past week with a guy concerning this all web 2.0 thing. For him it was about technology, technology and technology as the main driver for innovation….

I’m not sure to agree with the idea of the web 2.0 as uniquely a technology component. I don’t think that we have really seen a revolution within the web in term of technology. It’s true that we have seen Ajax been more and more used, yes we have new great languages like ruby on rails emerging but is it really a revolution????
Since I work in the web industry, I have always seen new languages, new applications been created and that was also part of the Web 1.0 (if we need to call it like that…)

It’s a part of what the web was in the past, is today and will be in the future… a constant evolution….

I have also heard something that i found even more crazy that you need to a technical person to be able to develop innovation… So if it’s the case, i would like to know why, when i’m browsing the web I found websites which are all the same, video portal, social networks, etc….

For me, the difference between now and before are:

* A stronger focus on user relationships, user interactions

* We try to care more about users and reproduce social patterns visible in the “real world” in the online world with the specificity of the environment…. The web is a new channel of communication that we learn to use

* Try to be smarter in term of business models & business goals

* Having a technology more focus on consumer which enhance interactions and actions done on the moment

Like I’m critic here, let’s be part of the whole game and try to give a definition

Web 2.0 = [Consumers {Interaction + activity + control} + Business {activation + consumer centric design + technology + market opportunity + validity of the business model} ]/ trust

or maybe in simplistic words: “be sure to please the users, let them to interact how they want, and let’s make money….”

I’m sure for those who don’t know me that you will have noticed the irony behind my words.. and to finish ask yourself this question : Does the user is always right?

For those interested by Skypecasts and who try to figure out how to use it, why it’s interesting , why it can develop a new way for exchange over the Internet, this article from eductechie is focus on the academic world and it’s a really interesting view.

I have several blogs in the past few years… After a while, I needed to restart and create something else.
Let’s see if this time, I will be able to keep it for several months

Ah the URL suggest, I will be here mainly writing about online social networks, online communities, social marketing and things I find cool.

Let’s go…

Interesting article in .NET about BlogTalkRadio. A service which want to “turn bloggers into podcasters”. I don’t know personally (it engage only me…) if that is possible, at least for the main part of Bloggers, as there are a huge difference between writing and talking, and the level of engagement is completely different.

Now, powering Bloggers with the ability to enable their community via voice conversation, discuss and exchange is I think completely different and more related to the “Blog Style” who can be sometimes a bit unstructured (e.g: different subjects from a post to one other …).

I don’t think voice conversations will replace Blogs, or online social networks for example but there are just another steps in the relationships between users, to create, reinforce and strengthened the “personal” aspect and the communication.

One of the main limitation, I can see with BlogTalkRadio is the limitation at 5 concurrent users which doesn’t give place to spontaneity and “fun” via voice conversation with your peers (even the communication can be done by IMs)… I think at least this service should let the opportunity to manage users their own talk show as they want (structured (one or few users talk) or fully unstructured…

Blogs and group voice conversations need to support each other, to make the communication different and more valuable and it’s exactly where is the strength not in giving another tools to create sort of podcasts…

Please to note that it’s my personal opinion and engage only me …